Game Review: Assassin's Creed Revelations

Platform: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC

Price: £25 - £39.99

Age Rating: 15

Genre: Historical Science Fiction / Action Adventure

Design


Now i know what you are thinking, ' once you've played on Assassin's Creed game you've played them all' right? Well that may have been the case with the last two games in the franchise however this time its come back rebooted with some new additions, some helpful and some just an absolute hindrance but nevertheless Ubisoft has made sure that Ezio and Altair's final outing goes out with a bang, with rich textured cut-scenes and breathtaking pan shots of 16th century Constantinople or as it is now known Istanbul make for pleasant viewing  but at times the voice acting can let it down, once again the townspeople all look very similar and you find yourself recruiting Assassins to the brotherhood who look exactly the same but have a different name. This time around the online mode has been cleaned up significantly with a new look and a training mode so that you are not just thrown in head first like you were in Brotherhood.

-Story Mode: Several years after the death of Cesare Borgia, Ezio Auditore is on a quest to find the keys hidden by his ancestor Altair, these five keys unlock the secrets of Altair's library and so Ezio hopes the secrets of the Assassins them selves, meanwhile Desmond is trapped in a coma inside the Animus with the slightly irritating but truly loyal Subject 16. The story takes off immediately with a young Assassin called Yusuf showing you the ropes, or rather the roofs of Constantinople, Ezio also quickly finds that he has more to learn from the young assassins with new equipment such as the hook-blade and varying bombs to take the players fancy, later in the game bombs can be crafted using specific ingredients to make a certain type of bomb. The hook-blade is a welcome addition to the game as you find it gives you that little bit of extra reach when you need to jump from building to building preferably without dropping 60 feet to your death, it can also be used on zip-lines across the city however I have found that these are very few and far between and that when they are used they are just much more of a show off option. The guards in Revelations come in two types, the Byzantines who lets be honest just want to rip Ezio's head off, or any other part of his body for that matter, and the Ottomans who won't instantly attack you and have a severe dislike for Byzantines, however they can soon have a severe dislike for you if you annoy them but they are a welcome addition when times get a little tricky.
The story plays along just like the others, you have to complete DNA sequences to access specific memories before you can get to the final memory at the Assassin's tower in Masyaf, there are also missions in Desmond's side of the animus where you can play in a Portal style setup completing an entirely walk through puzzle, building bridges and ramps to get to your destination, I couldn't help but feel that this was one of the hindrances that I talked about earlier as it completely voluntary, you learn a little of Desmond's background story and why he ran away and you get the odd achievement or trophy after finishing each mission but nothing mind blowing to keep you away from Ezio for long, also later fragments of Desmond have to be collected by Ezio so keep a look out.
Another slightly unwelcome addition is the new 'Den Defence' which sees you capturing Templar dens just as you did in the previous games but you do have to defend them (hence the title). Its quite tedious after a while just imagine tower defence meets Assassin's Creed and you have Den Defence all wrapped up, although the saving grace does come in the form of your Assassin recruits who can be sent to protect it later in the game

Over all the story mode does not fail to impress, the climbing and running controls are exactly the same as the last one which can be tricky at times especially when hanging from tight ledges, the guards can be overpowering but its nothing that a good counter or a well placed smoke bomb can't cure. If you are one of those people who don't like lengthy cut-scenes before the action starts then this game isn't for you, it can become quite annoying when replaying a memory to get 100% and having to sit through the cutscences that you can skip ( there's only so many times Yusuf can say 'where is your hook-blade?' before you start screaming at your TV telling him that you don't have one yet ).

Online Mode- As I mentioned earlier Online mode is back and it has been tidied up since the last game, it flows much easier and the characters seem much more true to life and can be customised as you please, providing you have attained the correct level of course, the online has a small back-story and as you level up you come to learn more, there are frequent DLC's for the online and with the UPLAY system making an appearance again you are spoilt for choice for sneaky additions to the game. The game search time has been reduced dramatically, if you recall in the old game the dreary voice of a woman saying 'searching for program session' was all to familiar to online players and left us thinking that Abstergo should really change their internet provider, clearly DrearyWoman aren't a very good company...

As it goes the online mode is suitable for its purpose, bringing people together so that they can jump from buildings or haystacks to kill each other, but that is as far as it goes, at times it tries to hard to keep up with the other online games around it and tends to take the excitement of playing online away.

Gameplay


Overall the game really stands out in its genre as you can't really beat the amount of stealthy ways that Ezio is able to eliminate his enemies, its certainly a game that gets much better as it goes along as were Assassin's Creed II and Brotherhood with the best weapons and armour unlocked later in the game, bonuses are also granted for finding collectibles and completing DNA Sequences 100% the final few scenes really make it for the two ancestors I even found myself calling Altair a 'clever man' I got that much into it.

Presentation


Revelations is presented just as all the other games in the Assassin's Creed franchise were, superbly. The graphics and sound detail that have gone into this game are top class and the music swelling at just the right moment really adds to the atmosphere and suspense of the cut-scenes and the in game fights, however i wish the same could be said for the online mode, i just feel they have taken the map templates from Brotherhood, added some new buildings and plantpots and they think that will do, it just seemed to me as a poor attempt at taking something that was once new and making it well... old-hat, if Ubisoft were to include an online in the next game it would seriously need to look at changing the way the game feels when you step into the maps it's unfortunate really because the main game really does look amazing.

So to summarise if you loved all of the other Assassin's Creed games you will honestly love this however if you are looking for something different to running across rooftops, assassinating guards and being generally all round awesome then unfortunately you will be disappointed but lets be honest, we all love a bit of historical free-running swordplay

Ratings

Design : 9.5

Gameplay : 9.2

Presentation: 9.4

Storyline: 9.4

Online: 8.5

Overall 9.2